Showing titles in Sociology of Sports

With the triumph of England's Lionesses at Euro 2022, the women's game has been in the spotlight like never before, enjoying unprecedented media attention. But this is the result of decades of struggle to get women's football–banned by the English FA for fifty years–on a more equal footing to its male counterpart. 

After covering the American sports scene for 15 years, Chuck Culpepper suffered from a profound case of Common Sportswriter Malaise. He was fed up with self-righteous proclamations, steroid scandals, and the deluge of in-your-face PR that saturated the NFL, the NBA, and MLB. Then in 2006, he moved to London and discovered a new and baffling world - the renowned Premiership soccer league. Culpepper pledged his loyalty to Portsmouth, a gutsy, small-market team at the bottom of the standings. As he puts it, “It was like childhood, with beer.”

Step inside the garage of Red Bull Racing, Formula's One's most electrifying team, for the 2025 season - a year of pressure, chaos and more dramatic twists and turns than the street circuit of Monte Carlo. And a season that went down to the wire. Through the eyes of embedded journalist, F1 expert Matt Majendie, this book captures the raw intensity of a season defined by incredible action both on and off the track. Can four-time World Champion, the world's fastest man, Max Verstappen, retain his title amid the onslaught from the devastatingly quick McLaren's of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri?

A celebration of birding as an inclusive activity for everyone, from organizing members of the Feminist Bird Club. Birding is for everyone. That is the sentiment on which the Feminist Bird Club (FBC) was founded in 2016 and the spirit that is celebrated in this original and timely book. In these...

For every success story, there's always a back story. Behind The Brilliance will shine a torch behind the superstardom, whether it be in sport, entertainment, business etc. and the journey that person has had along the way to reach that brilliance. Tales of death, destruction, terror and...

“A dusty road stretches into the distance like a pencil line across the arid landscape. Lions, rhino, and buffalo roam the plains on either side. But I haven’t come to Kenya to spot wildlife. I’ve come to run.” Whether running is your recreation, your religion, or just a spectator...

NEW YORK TIMES bestseller Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year National Sports Media Association Sports Book of the Year An NPR "Book of the Day" #1 New York Times bestselling author Joe Posnanski is back with a masterful ode to the game: a countdown of 50 of the most...

In an increasingly secular, fragmented, and distracted culture, nothing brings Americans together quite like sports. On Sundays in September, more families worship at the altar of the NFL than at any church. This appeal, which cuts across all demographic and ideological lines, makes sports perhaps the last unifying mass ritual of our era, with huge numbers of people all focused on the same thing at the same moment. That timeless, live quality makes sports very powerful, and very lucrative. And the media spectacle around them is only getting bigger, brighter, and noisier.   

Those who have been lured by the sound of skate blades slicing into fresh ice and everything-or-nothing attitude of the game know that hockey can seem like its own world. Yet in another light, that tight community can turn insular; the values of teamwork and humility can manifest as collective silence in the face of abuse and discrimination. In Game Misconduct, reporters Evan Moore and Jashvina Shah reveal hockey's toxic undercurrent which has permeated the sport throughout the junior, college, and professional levels.

The Premier League is the most commercially successful football league in history, the self-proclaimed 'best league in the world'. But success has come at a cost, unbalancing the English game to a profound and damaging degree. In this revealing and eye-opening analysis, leading economist Mark Gregory reveals the breadth and depth of the problems facing our national men's game, and shows us a way to bring football home for good.

An unflinching, all–access look at the friendship between Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin, two of the most beloved New York Yankees and two flawed heroes who battled the colliding forces of success and self–destruction. Through meticulous research and exclusive interviews with the late Mickey...

Sports fandom isn’t what it used to be. Owners and executives increasingly count on the blind loyalty of their fans and too often act against the team’s best interest. Sports fans are left deliberating not only mismanagement but also political, health, and ethical issues. In Rethinking Fandom: How to Beat the Sports Industrial Complex at Its Own Game, sportswriter and lifelong sports fan Craig Calcaterra outlines endemic problems with what he calls the sports-industrial complex.

Professional wrestling is both a cultural phenomenon and a multibillion-dollar industry that has launched some of the biggest names in entertainment. But what does it take for a wrestler to break through? In Rough House, journalist Alison Lyn Miller introduces Hunter James, an aspiring star born into a family of wrestlers in Georgia. Hunter lifts, runs, and pounds protein, sculpting himself into a human action figure with the goal of being signed by a major promotion and finishing what his father started.

Drugs in sport are big news and the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport is common. Here, Chris Cooper, a top biochemist at the University of Essex, looks at the science behind drugs in sport. Using the performance of top athletes, Cooper begins by outlining the limits of human performance. Showing the basic problems of human biochemistry, physiology, and anatomy, he looks at what stops us running faster, throwing longer, or jumping higher. Using these evidence-based arguments he shows what the body can, and cannot, do.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Rap Year Book and Basketball (and Other Things), a clever and inventive examination of some of basketball's most iconic players, moments, games, and more. Everything in basketball is measured. Everything in basketball is counted, and...

New York Times bestselling authors Mike Schur and Joe Posnanski travel the world in a hilarious and heartwarming celebration of fans and the things they love: baseball, basketball, chess, darts, football, futbol, Indigenous North American stickball, pickleball, WWE, Taylor Swift, Star Wars, and...

In Soccer in American Culture: The Beautiful Game’s Struggle for Status, G. Edward White seeks to answer two questions. The first is why the sport of soccer failed to take root in the United States when it spread from England around much of the rest of the world in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The second is why the sport has had a significant renaissance in America since the last decade of the 20th century, to the point where it is now the fourth largest participatory sport in the United States and is thriving at the high school, college, and professional levels.

From the sports documentarian and executive producer of the docuseries The Religion of Sports, a memoir-meets-manifesto about the overwhelming power of sports and how they provide meaning and purpose in people’s lives all over the world. Featuring never-before-heard stories about Tom Brady...

A New York Times bestselling and award-winning journalist uses cutting-edge sports research to make the case for why being a fan is good for us individually and is a force for positive change in our society. Larry Olmsted’s writing and research have been called “eye-opening” (People)...

This book aims to guide parents through the challenges of youth hockey, providing insights and strategies to foster a positive environment that promotes skill development, sportsmanship, and personal growth. By focusing on the desires of buyers seeking guidance on youth hockey parenting, the book equips parents with knowledge, empathy, and practical approaches to support their young athletes.